China Tightens Supervision of Online Games

China has vowed to tighten supervision of its fast-growing online games market, saying some games contained content that was “harmful” to players.

Some online games used “bloody, violent and obscene” content to attract players, hurting their “physical and psychological health”, the culture ministry said.

The ministry said it would toughen the approval process for new online game companies and step up oversight of content such as role definition and language.

For their part, online game developers should limit the number of virtual marriages and player-versus-player combat and improve technology to restrict the amount of time teenagers can spend on the Internet, the ministry said in a statement posted on its website Wednesday.

The game features the regulators dislike, especially monster hunting as the main way for players to gain experience points and new powers, exist in virtually all hit online games. Game operators should also limit highly popular systems that let players kill other human-controlled characters, the country’s culture ministry said in a statement on its Web site.

Game operators using violence, erotic content and gambling to attract players “have adversely influenced consumers and especially the physical and mental health of minors,” the statement said. The ministry also ordered game operators to create monitoring divisions to censor their own products and to strengthen systems that limit play time for minors.